All the Small Things

I feel that I, and therefore I can assume that this is equally true of at least some of you, sometimes look too much at the big picture and forget that it is all made up from smaller, less fancy images. It’s wood for the tress territory really. As Magicians we tend to think more in grand, big picture, widescreen extravaganza terms more than the microscopical building blocks of our day to day lives. But As Above IS So Below and personally, I think it’s time for me to work on that bit, for a bit.

I am attracted to the occult because I am looking for the Big Knowledge, the Big Secret, Big Powers or Big Whatever is calling me this week and because of that I sometimes let the small but important things slide. Seeing the Magic of the Universe revealed by the Gods before my very eyes is a worthy goal, but so is the goal of not being a totally exhausted TV Zombie by 8pm.

Probably all better explained with an example. If you have been reading my other post (and why not?) then you will know that I have taken a slight Left Hand route at the minute (well, to be fair, I was always kinda LHP in a lot of areas I just recently decided to actively follow it as a path in a sort of belief shifting exercise) and I have just finished going through the first three levels of a LHP School’s Correspondence Course material.

Now, first off an apology, I illegally downloaded this material and I went ahead with the reading of the higher levels even though I didn’t have the qualifying initiations. SO, I know I am not getting as much out of this material as I would have if I did it correctly. I know this, because as a member of B.O.T.A I understand how the weekly lessons work differently than just reading through all the available information. The PDFs of the first 3 years of B.O.T.A are freely available on torrent sites but I guarantee that if you download them and read through them you will not learn anywhere near as much as doing them weekly, paying for membership and doing the exams. You just won’t. Until you do it the Right Way, you won’t understand the difference.

Having said all that, and bringing this ramble back on point, there was a part of the lessons that stuck out to me. I almost feel bad now writing this, as I feel like the terribly bold adept who is revealing inside secrets that he should not be privy to. But, it’s not quite like that. I have heard this “secret” many times, in many places, it’s just that this current incarnation of the information seemed to resonate with me a lot more.

The Course talks about Fatigue and why it is such a deadly enemy to be slain. The more you let yourself be burdened by the mundane, the less energy, or power, you have available to you for your magic work. But what does this mean in practicality? Well, we return to the small things again. It’s the small things that build up and over the course of the day become this huge Fatigue Demon that makes us not want to do anything other than sit in front of Netflix all evening. It’s the Demon Fatigue that takes all your energy and makes you convince yourself that actually, no, tomorrow is a much better time to do that Sigil. I could list more examples, but I am sure you all get the idea.

The small things comprise of many things. A small thing is responding to that stupid Facebook comment to show the poster that they are wrong, or to defend yourself online from someone who you don’t know or in actuality, care about. It’s getting annoyed because someone is serving you slower than you want them to. It’s getting annoyed because you split a small amount of Coffee on some paper. It’s the sound of the Vacuum Cleaner.

All these things add together for strength, none of them having any real power on their own. By the end of the day you have had some many building up that you have no energy for anything else but the kicker is, you don’t know why you are so tired.

SO, my new Big Magick is to slay the small things at their birth. Stop wasting bits of me on unworthy paths. Join me? Next time you feel you want to write that response on-line, think of where it is leading. Thinking of the power you are giving away. Think if the person you are responding to is worth the magic you will loose.

The Demon Fatigue is powerful and his army of Small Things is Legion. Let’s end his reign.